Learning Your Class - Retribution Paladin

Who am I?\rHi, my name is Mike (AKA Daisu) and I am a paladin main, who has been playing since TBC 2.4.3 patch. I've been on a competitive level of PvP and PvE since then. I play 16+ hrs a day in my hardcore times.\r\rIntroducing myself as the class:\rPaladin was my first class in World of Warcraft. I had 2 of my irl friends who also played WoW at that time, we were 3 paladins, 3 different specs, it was a lot of fun. I tried all of the other classes, but none were as rewarding as paladin. I quickly came to a realization that the class chose me at that point and I was meant to be a paladin main. The main thing that keeps me excited about still playing a paladin, is that your rotation matters the most, compared to every other class in the game. I never feel as rewarded when I play other classes.\r\rExplaining the spec:\rPaladin is a cooldown class, don't expect a paladin to do much without cooldowns, when many other classes can still do well without any major cooldowns. Since Cataclysm ret paladins' playstyle heavily shifted towards managing holy power and min-maxing the usage of your abilities to maximize the damage. Since then the spec has been changed over and over to make it more focused about holy power management and the rotation. One might say that ret paladins are the easiest to play. I agree. Ret paladins are one of the easiest specs to play or to start with, but they're the hardest to master.\r\rThe rotation:\rRet paladin is so highly focused on the rotation, that every button makes a huge difference on the damage later on. I'll write down ability priorities, so that it's easier for everyone to remember.\r\rBlade of Justice>Judgment>Crusader Strike>Templar's Verdict\/Divine Storm\r\rNow you might think, why is Templar's Verdict in the end and not in the beginning 'cause it clearly deals highest damage? Well, the idea behind it is, that you have to send every other ability on the cooldown before you use your holy power spender. This changes a bit in BL, in your burst and in many other situations due to high haste and your important abilities coming off cooldown way earlier. \r\rIf you're not bursting in Avenging Wrath or Crusade this is how you should manage your rotation:\rFollow your normal rotation priorities, always open with Judgment if you're too far to use Blade of Justice. If both of your Judge and BoJ are on cd, use 1 charge of CS, so that you start its cd. If you haven't hit anything for a while (~30 secs or so) your first attack will guarantee Art of War, which takes us back to our opener again. When you open with judge and then use BoJ, make sure to use BoJ before you hit the target with a melee attack 'cause your first melee attack will reset the cd of BoJ. After you master the opener trick, move on to the actual rotation.\r\rGenerally, this is when you want to spend your holy power: You should only use Templar's Verdict if every other ability is on cd (at least 1 charge of CS has to be on cd too). Use Wake of Ashes whenever you can, but make sure to always have it for wings. Do not use WoA if your Judge and BoJ are not on cd. If those 2 abilities are on cd and you have 0 holy power, that is the best time to use WoA.\r\rNow let's think about Righteous Verdict, how does it affect our priorities. Which leads us to another set of priorities.\r\rIf you have 3 holy power at any point, your Judgment, Blade of Justice and at least 1x charge of Crusader Strike is on cooldown, you always spend your holy power if you can't squeeze another ability until your Righteous Verdict buff runs out 'cause we wanna have that buff for every TV that we use. If you can squeeze an extra ability in this situation, then do so, the ability order is the same as the normal rotation in that case. If you ignore this and just spend holy power mindlessly, there's a high chance that you'll lose your Righteous Verdict buff and even have a downtime on your abilities where you can't use any ability 'cause everything is on cooldown. You never want that to happen.\r\rNow let's take a look at Divine Purpose. This talent doesn't change much in the rotation. The priority of this proc is the same as the priority of Templar's Verdict. You spend your proc if all of abilities are on cd (at least 1 charge of CS) and if you're not gonna burn any holy power by using Judge or BoJ. ("burning" is a term where you use an ability that gives holy power and you get more holy power than you can fit. Example: If you use BoJ when you're at 4 holy power, you'll burn 1 holy power), you don't wanna burn your holy power, ever.\r\rIf you're using Hammer of Wrath talent, use HoW instead of Crusader Strike whenever you can. There's not much else to it. I'm not a fan of HoW talent, it has a very limited use to make it more worth than the other talent(s).\r\rThe burst:\rRemember your opener where we talked about Art of War. Make sure to get 5 holy power as soon as possible. If Art of War doesn't proc then get your 5 holy power the normal way.\r\rRule #1: Never use wings if you don't have 5 holy power or Wake of Ashes. Always use your on-use trinkets in the beginning of Avenging Wrath or after you get maximum stacks of Crusade.\r\rDamage priority: Templar's Verdict\/Divine Storm>Judgment>Blade of Justice>Crusader Strike.\r\rIf you're using Crusade and you have BL and everything, you can follow this priority.\r\rCrusade build up rotation step-by-step: Gain 5 holy power the way we practiced, pop Crusade. You can pop Battle Potion of Strength with Crusade 'cause they both have the same duration. Use Templar's Verdict, then use Crusader Strike if you cannot use Judge or BoJ, Templar's Verdict again, Wake of Ashes, Templar's Verdict. Now you have x10 (all) stacks of Crusade, pop your trinket(s). At this point you can follow the damage rotation above until Crusade ends. Then just continue your normal rotation.\r\rAvenging Wrath rotation: Gain 5 holy power the way we practiced. Pop Avenging Wrath, Battle Potion of Strength and your trinket(s) here. The ability priority isn't that much different here compared to your normal rotation. Only difference is that you'll hit harder and things are gonna be a bit faster only if your group popped BL. Make sure to use Wake of Ashes at the right time in your burst, like when both of your Judge and BoJ are on cd and you have 0 holy power. If you never get the case where you have 0 holy power and those 2 abilities are on cd and your wings are close to expiring, then burn 1 holy power with Wake of Ashes to maximize your burst. You are only allowed to burn 1 holy power in your burst. You can burn it whenever you want. Most of the times I burn it at the start to get my Wake of Ashes cd going as early as possible.\r\rStat priority:\r\rStrength is our best stat because it simply makes our abilities stronger. Secondary stats aren't strong enough to take the priority over our main stat. Haste has always been ret paladins' best secondary stat. It is too valuable for ret paladins to have a high haste, without haste you might have a downtime in your rotation, which hurts ret paladins a lot, more haste means faster procs and faster usage of our abilities that build up holy power, that is the most beneficial for ret paladins. After haste I'd say it doesn't matter as much 'cause haste is that much more valuable than any other secondary stat, but mastery is our next best stat. Each point of mastery gives us way more damage than crit or vers. It is not even close how much better mastery is than crit or haste. If you want numbers, I'd say almost twice as good. Each point of mastery gives us too much holy damage compared to crit or vers, vers is like a poor version of mastery atm. Crit is crit, gives you a chance to deal critical (double) damage. Mastery is just way better 'cause it's not a chance, it is a flat holy damage boost and our majority of the damage is holy. \r\rThe End:\rAs you can see, something that looks easy from the outside is not as easy from the inside when you actually decide to master the class. There are too many details that affect your outcome in the rotation.\r\rGood luck in your journey. Honor, Glory and Justice to you, my friend!